


This Is How Our Dreams Arrive

by honey_wheeler, thefairfleming



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-23
Updated: 2014-02-23
Packaged: 2018-01-13 11:19:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1224328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefairfleming/pseuds/thefairfleming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can’t even quite say when it began. Not that first night, nor even the night after that. But sometime in the last year, she started to realize how very handsome Jon looked, moving above her. How warm his skin was, how gentle his touch for all his scars and calluses. And noticing such things had led to...wanting things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Are you all right?”

The words are murmured hoarsely near her ear, and Sansa must try very hard not to shiver.

“I am,” she answers, her eyes closed. It’s easier that way, she’s learned. With her eyes closed, she cannot see the way his hair curls over his brow, how his lips part and pupils widen. Cannot see the sheen of sweat in the dim firelight.

She feels Jon sigh, his breath washing over her skin, and once again, Sansa steels herself.  It’s just that it’s been too long, is all. Jon usually shares her bed at least once every fortnight, but he’s been in White Harbor for near a moon’s turn now, and only just returned a few days back. In truth, she’d expected her husband to visit her chambers the first night he’d returned.

She had hoped for it.

But no, Jon had waited until tonight, and now they couple as they always do, Sansa still in her shift, Jon still in his shirt, her palms lying flat against the linen. Over the rough saw of his breath, she can hear the crackle of the fire, the slight squeak of the bed, and, as always, her own heartbeat pounding, blood rushing in her ears.

Jon shifts above her, bracing his weight on both hands, his hips keeping up a steady rhythm that makes something within her long to...to…

Suddenly Jon stills, and Sansa opens her eyes to find him staring down at her with an expression she can’t read.

“Sansa,” he says, and she blinks.

“My lord?” The words trip past her lips, and she instantly wishes to call them back for how stupid and formal she sounds, speaking to a man who is currently braced above her. Who is inside of her.

“You...you’re certain you’re well?” he asks, brow creasing. Sansa’s fingers itch to soothe that wrinkle, and she tightens them in the bedclothes.

“Of course I am,” she answers. “Are you not?”

The corners of Jon’s mouth turn down, and it strikes Sansa that they are so good at being married everywhere but here in her bedchambers. Outside this room, they smile at one another. They work closely and speak freely and sometimes share silences that are so comfortable Sansa wishes they could sink into them forever. Yes, if their marriage only included running Winterfell during the day and sitting in her solar at night, Jon watching the fire, Sansa embroidering, they would probably be very fine indeed.

But there had never been any question of simply doing away with this part of their marriage. They are the stewards of Winterfell now, Wardens of the North. It’s their duty to sire more Starks, future guardians of the castle and the land so many have died for.

And neither she nor Jon shirk duties.

Reaching up, Sansa gives his arm the barest of strokes, encouraging him to continue, and after a moment, Jon resumes his movements, slower than before.

Sansa once again closes her eyes.

It is her greatest shame, this fire in her blood when Jon makes love to her.

She can’t even quite say when it began. Not that first night, nor even the night after that. But sometime in the last year, she started to realize how very handsome Jon looked, moving above her. How warm his skin was, how gentle his touch for all his scars and calluses. And noticing such things had led to...wanting things. To open her legs further. To rest her hands on the flexing muscles of his back. To chase the line of his jaw with her lips. To welcome him to her bed simply for pleasure and not for the siring of heirs.

But those are perverse thoughts, more signs that something within her soured and rotted long ago. Jon is not her brother in truth, but does blood matter in such things? What kind of woman lusts for a _brother_?

Sansa knows well what sort of woman that is, and she will not- she _cannot_ \- be that.

Her eyes open almost of their own volition. Jon does not look at her now, his gaze focused in front of him, his expression stony and closed off, and further proof that she is wrong to feel the way that she does. Jon understands that this is just another one of their duties. Every time he comes to her bed, he follows the same pattern. A kiss to her forehead. Her cheek. Her lips. A soft, dry kiss that is nothing like the hot meeting of mouths and tongues that she finds herself longing for. She lies back, she raises her shift, his hands move over her just enough to make sure he will not hurt her (and Sansa wonders if he has ever noticed that she is ready long before his fingers part her.)

It is as much a part of his work as Lord of Winterfell than anything else, and Sansa would do well to follow his lead.

He moves faster now, and Sansa can feel a sort of dark heat coiling low in her belly, a sensation that has her squeezing her eyes more tightly closed and clutching the sheets. She knows she must keep still lest she do something completely mad like slide her hands to his back or hook a thigh over his hips.

Before she can let herself think that perhaps the bedding she once dreamed of as a girl is still something she can have.

Jon huffs out a breath that is nearly a growl and then he is rolling away from her, flopping onto his back next to her, one arm thrown above his head, his chest heaving.

Confused, Sansa blinks. He has not finished yet, and she has never known Jon to stop mid-act. “My lord?” she asks again, and then, softer, “Jon?”  
She touches the arm lying by his side, and he flinches, making something within her ache.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice low and rough. “I…,” Trailing off, he shakes his head, gaze on the ceiling. “Not tonight,” he finally finishes, and Sansa feels her cheeks flame as she works her shift back down her legs. Had he seen something in her face? Had he known what she had been thinking? Or is it just that he cannot bring himself to make love to- _No_ , she thinks sourly, _call it what it is. After a month away, he can no longer bring himself to fuck his sister._

Sansa stares at the ceiling as well, willing her tears not to fall. “It’s all right,” she tells him, and her voice is steady. “We can always...there are other nights.”

Jon takes a deep breath, and in the silence that follows, Sansa’s stomach drops.

_He is going to say he doesn’t want other nights. He is going to put an end to this farce because he knows what I am now._

But all Jon says is a soft, “Good-night, Sansa.”


	2. All At Once On Our Tongues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A marriage bed is not the same as a Wildling woman’s furs, Jon had known that. But still, he’d hoped.

Even in his dreams, he can’t escape his desire for her. She is warm to his touch in his dream tonight, the curve of her hip fitting his hand perfectly, her breath soft and warm against his lips. He swears if he inhales he can taste her, the unique flavor of her mouth that’s part lemon, part salt, part Sansa.

It’s the best sort of dream that’s also become the keenest sort of torment. Much like Jon’s life. For so long, he’d yearned for something like this: a name. A place in the world. A home with someone to lie beside him and beneath him, someone to hold and touch, a wife and a mother to his children. And now he has it, only for it to be twisted and wrong. Or perhaps it’s Jon who is twisted and wrong. Not because he longs to kiss his wife as if she’d never been his sister, longs to touch her, to fall upon her and explore every bit of her with lips and hands and tongue, to part her legs and savor her taste before getting a thousand babes upon her.

No, he’s wrong and twisted because he couldn’t give a hang about wanting those things with the girl who was once his sister. He would indulge in each and every last one of them without a single shred of guilt, were it not for Sansa and how stiff and still she holds herself when they’re coupling, for how politely she speaks to him even in their marriage bed – even as he moves inside her! – and for how carefully and obediently she submits to his attentions, attentions that must seem unbearably base to her. He’s wrong and twisted because even with such signs of her unwillingness, he cannot help but want her.

Tonight had been everything that is so wrong in their marriage. The entire time he was in White Harbor, he’d longed for her, for her steady presence by his side, her quiet company every evening. For the sweet sound of her laughter, the way her scent lingered in a room long after she’d gone. For the feel of her as he moved within her. From so far and so long away it was easy to forget how he cursed himself each time he lay with her, how he struggled with his instinct to kiss her and touch her, to do more than just ready her. To please her, to make her world come apart. It was easy to forget how, each time she lay nearly as unmoving and unyielding as a statute – a sweet, gently mannered statue, but a statue nonetheless – Jon felt a wave of revulsion for himself worse than any he’d ever experienced. A marriage bed is not the same as a Wildling woman’s furs, Jon had known that. But still, he’d hoped.

It had been naïve, really, to think she might request his presence in her chambers the night he returned. This had been a welcome relief for her, perhaps. A moon’s turn of peaceful nights. He’d waited several days before visiting her in her bedchamber, knowing he must, knowing Winterfell needed an heir no matter how difficult the creation of one.

He would have thought being apart from her for so long would make everything quick and tidy tonight. Instead he could barely force himself through it. He should never have indulged in such wretched fantasies while at White Harbor; it made the reality all the more painful. She’d kept her eyes closed the whole time, unable to bear even looking at him. Jon remembers it now in his half-wakeful state and he feels it like a knife in his chest. The pain of it brings him further awake, out of that sweet dream where she presses closer to him and sighs, the sound nearly as sweet as the feel of her against him. But rather than receding and growing dim, that feeling only intensifies, until Jon opens his eyes and realizes why.

Even when they’ve coupled, he does not think he’s been so close to her. When he’d fallen asleep, she’d been curled on her side, facing away from him, as if even in sleep she couldn’t bear to look at him. Sometime in the night she’d turned to face him, though. Turned and moved so close to him that her breath on his lips wasn’t a dream, nor was his hand on her hip.

Nor his thigh insinuated between hers, with only her shift to separate her flesh from his own.

In less than a blink Jon feels as if the blood in his veins has been replaced by fire. He’s imagined her in so many ways that surely this is one of them, but still it feels shockingly new, like some undiscovered frontier. It’s so shocking that it takes him far longer than it should to realize that Sansa is moving, her hips rocking against his thigh, slowly but in an unmistakable rhythm, one that changes the fire in his veins to lightning. He should be the good man she believes him to be. He should move away and let her sink back into sleep none the wiser. He shouldn’t take advantage of her vulnerable, sleep-soft state.

Jon is not a good man, it seems.

Her hip gives enticingly when he flexes his hand, his fingertips sinking into the sweet yield of her. She’s always been tall and slender, but on these nights in her bed, Jon’s learned the secret curves of her body, the lushness that tempts and torments him when she lies beneath him at night but is hidden away in heavy gowns and stiff fabric during the day. Sinking his fingers into that lushness is as satisfying as he always imagined it would be. Even more satisfying is snaking his other hand beneath her other hip, spanning her with his hands and guiding her hips into a deeper motion, one that has her squeaking and sighing against his lips. Gods, he is a bankrupt man for this, but there is no question of stopping.

She responds eagerly to the light pressure of his hands, moving in a sinuous writhe now, one that brings her linen-covered breasts into teasingly brief contact with his chest. Roses bloom in her cheeks, pink and bright under the fan of her eyelashes, even in the dim firelight. Her lips are parted, her breath issuing in sweet pants that are the most arousing thing Jon has ever heard in his life, more so than any cry or moan or seductive words. Jon thinks he’s never seen anyone or anything half so beautiful.

She’s moving quickly now, erratically. Her pants are turning into whimpers, and Jon finds he was wrong, _those_ are the most arousing thing he’s ever heard. Until, that is, she gives a choked cry and utters his name.

It practically turns his world upside down. Some small part of him clings to the world as it was before she spoke, too afraid of believing in this new world only to have it ripped away. The rest of him only knows that he has been wasting time for far too long, believing her stillness to be reluctance, her mannerly speech to be a shield. Perhaps it is, but with one small word, Jon has begun to think it’s not so much a shield but rather armor. Armor not to keep his desires out, but to keep her own in. So he answers her, her name in response to his own.

Her eyes flutter open, soft with sleep and dark with desire, widening into surprise at his face so close to hers, and no doubt at the realization of their intimacy. Jon waits, he holds as still as she did all those nights and meets her eyes, refusing to yield or flinch away. If she would reject him, he would have it happen like this, no eyes closed, no gazes averted. Time stretches between them, spun into a narrow thread that seems closer to snapping with each passing moment. Jon’s stomach sinks, something sharp and panicked clawing at the inside of his chest. But then her eyes lose focus, she shudders and makes a mewling sound, her hands coming up to fist in his tunic, the tunic he always wears out of deference to her when he beds her but now wishes he could fling aside and incinerate, so that her hands would never touch anything but his bare skin again.

Once more she says his name, her voice unsteady when she says, “Jon, please.” She might as well have thrown brandy onto an open flame.

His hands are no longer guiding her hips but frankly urging them. Abandoning all caution, all restraint, he tugs her shift up with one hand, until there is nothing between her flesh and his and he can feel her hot and wet against his thigh. The only thing more heartfelt than his moan of gratitude is her own.

“There’s a girl,” he finds himself saying to her, his voice low and rough and wrecked. “There’s my girl, my beautiful Sansa. Gods, but how I’ve wanted you like this.” Her hips stutter against his thigh, a high, thin sound escaping her lips.

“Y-you have?” she whimpers, clutching at his shoulder so tightly that he feels her nails dig into his skin even through the damnable fabric.

“Endlessly,” he says. “Painfully.”

She whimpers again, then stiffens, her hips jerking as she comes apart in a peak so glorious, Jon thinks he could come right then to match, without even a touch. For what seems like an eternity, she shudders and twitches against him, her eyes closed and her forehead against his as he murmurs all manner of filth and endearments, telling her how sweet she is, how beautiful, how much he’s wanted to hold her and touch her and taste her, how many ways he wants to give pleasure to her if only she’ll let him, his wife, his lovely wife.

It is a long time afterwards before she opens her eyes, so long that Jon wonders if she’s fallen into sleep again. He resists the urge to cover her face with kisses, to pull her shift over her head and bear her back to the mattress so that he may touch every bit of her, learn her with his eyes and his hands and his mouth. Despite everything, there is still part of him that’s nervous; the soft darkness of night is more forgiving than the harsh light of day, sleep is more accommodating than wakefulness, and he does not want her to feel regret. He’d cut off his hands first.

“Do I owe you an apology?” he says when she’s opened her eyes to look at him at last, nervous at what her response may be but too nervous to let the silence lengthen any further. She looks searchingly at him, her eyes flicking back and forth between his own.

“Did you mean all those things you said?” she asks, her voice quiet and small. “About wanting to…to touch me and…taste me?” Her cheeks blaze, but her eyes don’t waver from his, and not for the first time he marvels at her strength, at her ordinary bravery, not the sort that is heralded on the battlefield or written about in poems, but the sort that has kept her alive and strong through all she’s endured.

“Yes.” He thinks perhaps he should explain or say more, but the truth of it is too simple to need any other words. His answer sends a shudder through her, one he feels in the slick slide of her still pressed to his thigh.

“Then you should only apologize if you don’t do all those things,” she tells him. The small, nervous voice in Jon’s head dies a quick and welcome death. Suddenly he can’t keep a grin from blooming across his face, a grin that’s matched by her own tentative smile. All the things he plans to do to her crowd his tongue, but he swallows them down. For once, he knows there will be time.

So he only says, “Yes, my lady,” and lowers his mouth to hers.

__  
Titles from Sleep Positions by Lola Haskins  



End file.
